French drop case against Met Office

A FRENCH IT contractor has dropped an £854m High Court claim against the Met Office triggered by its failure to win a contract to supply the world’s most advanced forecasting supercomputer.

Atos had made an unsuccessful bid to replace existing weather forecasting machines with the latest technology. The French company claimed British officials broke public procurement laws by handing the £1.2bn project to rival bidder Microsoft.

Atos told the High Court: “The Met Office has chosen a final tender which scored lower in quality, transferred more commercial risk to the Met Office and is more expensive.”

Yet the French business’s claim was settled last Friday after Met Office lawyers filed their final amended defence, The Register, a tech news site, reported.

A government spokesman acknowledged the legal settlement, which ends the case, and said: “The agreement allows the Met Office to concentrate efforts on delivering the infrastructure necessary to keep the UK at the forefront of global weather and climate science leadership.”

An Atos spokesman said: “We are pleased to have resolved this matter.”